Meet the rare American mayor who hates Uber

FILE - In this photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014, a man leaves the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco. A ruling filed Tuesday, June 16, 2015 in the case of a single Uber driver could have much broader implications for the popular ride-hailing service and for companies like it that rely on part-time workers for on-demand services. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press

Paul Soglin is the liberal mayor of Madison, Wis., one of few cities with a political sensibility to the left of San Francisco and an unemployment rate that’s just as low.

But unlike Mayor Ed Lee, who has emerged as a cheerleader for the tech industry, Soglin has fought to make Madison “the last city in America where Uber is allowed.”

Soglin, who is one of 280 mayors in town for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, told a Madison audience this year that Uber and Lyft’s business model is “built on exploitation” and treats drivers with a “16th century version of serfdom.”

So no, he has no intention of joining Lee on a tour of Uber’s headquarters Monday.

Soglin may be an outlier among the legions of public officials who swoon in the presence of Uber, which is valued at $50 billion and operates in hundreds of U.S. cities and 57 countries. But his opinion is in line with a ruling made public this week by the California Labor Commission, which said that an Uber driver is an employee, not an independent contractor.

Though it won’t set a legal precedent, that decision could portend a challenge to Uber’s business model and other companies in what is often called the sharing economy.

‘Spectacular’ ruling

And Soglin loved it.

“It was spectacular,” said Soglin, a former cabdriver who has been mayor of Madison for 18 years spread over four decades. “It’s a step toward breaking the exploitation and serfdom of thousands of workers.”

“This company is predatory in every sense of the word,” he said.

This weekend, he will ask his fellow mayors to support a nonbinding resolution that calls on Uber, Lyft and their competitors “to cease and halt all operations in municipalities until such time that they are properly regulated and licensed pursuant to law.”

So far, Soglin is the only sponsor. The last time he proposed this, debate was limited to a few minutes and it failed. It’s expected to fail again. As did his efforts to keep the ride services out of Madison (population 243,344). Uber began operating there in March 2014.

In May, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely Republican presidential candidate, signed a law that bans local ordinances — like the one in Madison — governing ride service companies. It requires companies to buy a state license, maintain liability insurance and perform background checks.

“Madison is a great example of a city where Uber just makes sense,” said Uber spokeswoman Jennifer Mullin. “Wisconsin recently joined the nearly 50 jurisdictions that have adopted regulations that embrace ridesharing, and we are excited about being part of the community for years to come.”

Lone wolf

On his efforts to keep Uber out of town, Soglin admits defeat: “Well, that failed.”

But the 70-year-old mayor, who was re-elected in April with 72 percent of the vote, isn’t deterred by being a lone wolf on an issue. He’s a guy who began protesting the Vietnam War in 1963 and visited Cuba three times when it wasn’t kosher, enjoying hours of conversation with Fidel Castro.

He’s concerned about an April incident in Madison in which a woman claimed an Uber driver touched her inappropriately during a ride. What troubled him is that when police contacted Uber about getting information about the driver, the company said it would need to be served a subpoena. Authorities did so, and Uber turned over the information.

But before Uber received a subpoena, Soglin had already called a press conference to rip it for “stonewalling.” Soon the suspected driver had fled the country, Soglin said.

“The fact is that is an industry that requires a certain amount of trust,” Soglin said. “The person in the back seat is very vulnerable. The standard practices of background checks and having immediate access to information” is vital.

Soglin likes Lee, his San Francisco counterpart, saying they “are 100 percent aligned on 95 percent of the issues facing our cities, like immigration reform, net neutrality and high-speed Internet and other things. But there is a difference between us on the role of these new tech companies in our economy and what they’re doing to our cities.”

Keeping the cabs

“I see them destroying regular taxicab service needed by everyday people. Not people like me, who jets into an airport and gets a cab in front of a hotel. I’m talking about people who have no other way to get to a health clinic on Tuesday. Or seniors who have to get to the grocery store and can’t carry their bags,” he said.

His goal is to try to keep cab companies alive long enough that they can develop better technology that will allow them to compete with their app-based rivals.

And if he succeeds, Soglin says, “Talk to me in a year, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about Amazon and eBay.”

Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, covering national and state politics. He has worked at The Chronicle since 2000 and in Bay Area journalism since 1992, when he left the Milwaukee Journal. He is the host of “It’s All Political,” The Chronicle’s political podcast. Catch it here: bit.ly/2LSAUjA

He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy — which he discussed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” after being told he couldn’t say the word “balls” on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!